This better mousetrap was too good

The day my friend Colette Barnhouse noticed little holes in food bags and boxes, she knew a beast had invaded her home. Then, the inevitable brown droppings started to appear on the cupboard floor.
She began listening closely, and soon she heard the rustling of the beast.
That's when Colette knew there was a mouse in her house.
As Colette told me her tale, I laughed and nearly cried as she attempted to conquer her beast and found out it was a beauty -- and a pretty good-smelling one at that!
"I could hear it in the cupboard," she told me.
Carefully, she opened the cupboard door. Seeing a cereal box move, she snapped down the lid, grabbed the box and ran outside. Walking a distance from the house, she opened the box and poured out the contents.
No mouse.
Back inside, the mouse was busy on another box of cereal. Again, Colette snapped the box shut, ran to the grassy area away from the house and dumped the contents.
Still, no mouse.
"I threw away all the cereal," she said with disgust and disdain in her voice. Considering her options for capture, Colette decided on glue traps. "I didn't want to use poison."
She put the glue trap on the shelf.
At 1 a.m. Colette's daughter came crying to her room. There was a mouse in the glue.
I could just picture Colette jumping out of bed with an evil laugh under her breath, anxious to rid her life of this invading beast. Until she got to the trap ...
"Its tail was completely stuck in the glue," she said, her voice and demeanor completely changed. "And its back legs were stuck. It was trying so hard to get free."
The face of the beast
Instead of impaling death upon her beast, she made her own deadly mistake. She looked at it.
"It was so cute!" she said. "It had brown fur and big ears and big brown eyes."
She decided to set the mouse free.
This posed a problem.
Going to the same grassy area where she had dumped the cereal boxes, she began pulling the mouse from the glue.
"I was going to kill it just trying to get it out of the glue!" she wailed, still upset at the thought of it.
She looked at her captive. "I tried to bring you outside in a cereal box," she implored to the critter.
Realizing she could not pull the beast from the glue, Colette walked slowly back into the house.
"I read the directions on the box of glue pads," she said. "They didn't say how to release the mouse!"
"Most people don't want the mouse released," I informed her.
But Colette couldn't stand to let her cute, furry, brown-eyed critter die on the glue pad.
"I didn't want it to die a slow death," she lamented.
So, Colette decided she would drown the mouse. (In Colette's defense, it was 1 a.m.!)
"Drowning is quick and only hurts for a minute," she reasoned.
Closing her eyes and holding her breath, she submerged the mouse in water -- for about 2 seconds.
"I couldn't stand to see it squirming for air!" she said with tears in her eyes.
She pulled the mouse out of the water and, miracle upon miracle, she noticed its tail was free of glue.
"The water was setting it free!" she beamed.
Quickly, Colette grabbed a bottle of oil and raced for the grassy area.
Freedom at last
After she sprinkled oil on the glue, the mouse was free.
"It looked up at me like it knew I wasn't going to hurt it," Colette said, satisfied with her accomplishment and new friend.
"You know it's just going to come back," I informed her.
If it does, she'll know it's her mouse. It will be a contented, depression-free mouse that smells like safflower oil, with no scars or dry skin.
gwhite@vindy.com